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The media's lab leak fiasco

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Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#391

Post by caddemon »

slg wrote: post #332
TechBro8615 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about hosting. It’s about distribution and eyeball minutes. As long as social media sites deliver content through an algorithmic feed, there are a limited number of slots available for the “next page.” The user will stop scrolling eventually. Their limited attention is valuable real estate. It’s also why social media has an incentive to maximize the time on feed. The best regulatory approach to social media…

How would you feel if we swapped out "social media sites" and "algorithmic" for "newspapers" and "editorial" in that first paragraph? There are a limited number of slots in the newspaper. Should the government step in a guarantee that the New York Times needs to publish any crackpot theory I come up with?

NYT can also be held liable for things like slander though, right? If social media sites try to claim they are not responsible for any content posted, that does feel a bit like trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#392

Post by throwaway69123 »

johncena33 wrote: post #108
throwaway69123 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality of this quote doesn’t justify censorship

The author is making the "vast network of scientists, govt. officials, and civillians" argument, which doesn't even pass the BS test. Few dozens researchers in Wuhan lab and CCP officials are more than enough to accomplish the cover up.

Threat of death is also a major deterrent

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#393

Post by chasd00 »

throwkeep wrote: post #66
deadalus wrote: post #5

Reminder that Facebook and Twitter banned users for talking about the lab-leak theory. Youtube accounts also got demontized/banned.

Exactly what many were warning about with big tech censorship and getting vilified for it. But it's good if it fails quickly and conclusively, instead of taking years to get to that point.

That’s a good point. At least the censorship failed quickly and completely. It’s clear it was the wrong thing to do.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#394

Post by chasd00 »

tacitusarc wrote: post #354
deadalus wrote: post #5

Reminder that Facebook and Twitter banned users for talking about the lab-leak theory. Youtube accounts also got demontized/banned.

Google also pinned the first result for any query about the WIV to an article claiming that there was no way whatsoever the virus came from there.

That’s awful, I hope they are thoroughly embarrassed.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#395

Post by nitwit005 »

throw0101a wrote: post #253
BurningFrog wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I would do, if elected Emperor over this, is to add warnings or links to debunkings of fringe theories, but never delete them. The power to silence will always be abused.

> or links to debunkings of fringe theories Sadly won't be helpful, and may actually make things worse: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backfire_effect * https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont...

That wikipedia link for the backfire effect directly mentions failure to reproduce the findings.

I will assume that's true, or you won't find this reply very convincing.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#396

Post by donw »

XorNot wrote: post #352
monoideism wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more or less in agreement with you on all of those companies except Twitter. Twitter is a notable exception and absolutely does have a monopoly on the social media sector as a "public square" - one which features almost every major politician, journalist, analyst, and activist on the platform, including at times, the US President and many other heads of state. And because of the network effect, this monopoly is u…

Except there's no barrier of entry to Twitter's marketplace. Twitter doesn't somehow prevent users installing other apps. They aren't a natural monopoly, seeing as how Facebook has been taking shots at that space for years. This bizarre HN notion that every big company is a "monopoly" needs to die. Being popular doesn't make you a monopoly.

> Except there's no barrier of entry to Twitter's marketplace.

There absolutely is. Twitter enjoys an incredible geographic monopoly. The territory just happens to be digital.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#397

Post by thundergolfer »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #180
speeder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Infamous case was Twitter baning Zerohedge because of it. And all that Zerohedge did was point out a lot of public documents, nothing private, and no bioweapon theory. (Twitter claimed Zerohedge had doxxed the scientist, but Zerohedge only had shown the official lab website and documents from it). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-bans-zero-hedge-coronav...

I think it's pretty obvious why they were banned: > The article, posted under the pseudonym "Tyler Durden" (the fictional character played by Brad Pitt in the movie "Fight Club"), was titled "Is This Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?" It included a photograph of a scientist at Wuhan's Institute of Virology and suggested that anyone curious about the epidemic might want to pay him "a visit."

Thanks for calling that out. This is the only example I've been offered and it's exactly the kind of "talking about the lab-leak theory" that I suspected was less innocent than posed by OP.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#398

Post by sjg007 »

RV86 wrote: post #107

IMO, determining the origin of the virus is of much more consequence than who was right and who was wrong back in 2020. If the virus crossed over naturally, it's reasonable to conjecture that this sort of thing is going to happen more and more often in the future. If it was human error in a lab, I would actually be relieved -- this seems like something that's much easier to correct. FWIW, I do think available evidenc…

A bigger issue is how far and fast it travels. We have no surveillance program or early warning system.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#399

Post by thaumaturgy »

pedalpete wrote: post #222

Am I the only one who feels like this is mostly a non-issue. I feel like the case of if this came from a lab for from a market is mostly taking a political side against China - if it came from a lab, or for China - if it was naturally developed. If it came from a Chinese lab as part of a conscious effort of weaponizing a virus, sure, that's important, but I don't think anyone is saying that. If it came from a lab acc…

You're not the only one.

A possible lab leak has seemed reasonable, given the circumstances, since early on. If it weren't for all the politics around it, I think it should have gotten a more careful treatment.

Unfortunately, it also became a political football. US-China trade wars were still in full swing at the time and both countries were jockeying for advantages in negotiations. There were lots of political people here that saw "blame China" as a way to force trade concessions, and others who muddied the waters further by going beyond an accident and wondering out loud if it was an engineered weapon.

On The Media recently had a little bit of coverage of this [1] and the guest, Alina Chan, had the completely reasonable conclusion that a science-based approach to investigating a lab leak is merited, that lab accidents do happen, and that if it was discovered to have been a lab leak, then the reaction ought to be to move labs like this one away from dense population centers and enact some quarantining protocols for researchers working with infectious diseases.

But this is still a subject that's going to be difficult to have a grounded discussion about because now it's being used as a political football against perceived media biases and censorship and the failings of liberalism and yadda yadda yadda.

[1]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med...

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#400

Post by noofen »

briefcomment wrote: post #328
shaicoleman wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also systematic censorship and disinformation against prophylaxis and early treatment information, which could prevent millions of hospitalisations and deaths. [1] e.g. YouTube recently censored the Ivermectin Global Summit, in which doctors and scientists showed the overwhelming scientific evidence for Ivermectin from around the world. [2] 1. https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-relea... 2.…

Insane How can you be so gung-ho with relatively new vaccines, but bury relatively benign and longer standing interventions?

I've had COVID, and this is why I will not get vaccinated, despite CDC recommendations. It's very creepy how they've buried treatments and promoted experimental vaccines.
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